1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a portable terminal, and more particularly, to an apparatus and a method for controlling a key input of a portable terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, various services and additional functions available for mobile devices have been steadfastly grown. In order to satisfy increasing demands of mobile users, diverse applications have been developed.
Basic applications are provided by the manufacturers can be downloaded and stored in the mobile device. To this end, tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of applications are currently being provided free of charge or with a fee to the portable terminal according to the products.
In recent years, at least dozens to hundreds of applications are typically stored in a portable terminal such as a smart phone and a tablet PC. These devices implemented with a touch screen are provided with shortcut keys for executing the respective applications displayed in an icon form on the touch screen. Thus, the users can execute a desired application by touching any one of the icons displayed on the touch screen.
Meanwhile, a portable terminal having a touch screen as described above may further include separate hardware keys as an input means. However, in operation, although the users can perform a touch input on the touch screen using a touch input medium such as a stylus pen, it is still difficult to activate or press the hardware keys using the stylus pen or other input object.